Heading into finals week, many students will crack open their books, spend hours in the library - and log onto Facebook.com in a desperate attempt to distract themselves from whatever subject they are cramming into their heads.
Currently with 58 million users and ranked the sixth most trafficked site on the Internet, the number of active Facebook users is doubling every six months.
Whatever students' reasons are for logging in, it seems that when finals roll around, students are checking to see if they have a new friend request or if a friend has written on their wall more often than normal.
"I find myself logging onto Facebook when I am trying to avoid studying, but there is so much to look at now that I end up wasting too much time browsing friends' pages or looking at pictures," admitted University of Massachusetts sophomore Erik Hellmer.
As the top photo sharing application on the web, it is no wonder that students can get caught up for long periods of time searching through their friends' pictures and seeing what others are up to.
With 14 million photos uploaded daily, users find no difficulty in finding and browsing through many recently added photos to pass the time.
"Looking through friends' pictures becomes addicting," said sophomore Emily Gittes. "Since most of my friends are away at different schools, I am curious to see what everyone is doing and how people have changed. The photo sharing application is a great way to do this."
With the recent applications being added to the website, such as the "bumper sticker," "build your own snowman" or "video" applications, where users can actually upload videos from their cameras or phones and post them on their pages, there are an increasing number of ways to become distracted.
Facebook gifts, thumbnail virtual icons which are sold for one dollar and can be sent to other friends on Facebook, have also become popular.
They are designed by Susan Kare, who designed the original icon set for the Macintosh computer in 1983. Although many students say they would not spend money on these virtual gifts, free gifts are sponsored by different companies, such as Harley Davidson, and can be given out by any user while supplies last.
There are also new gifts designed daily, which often correspond with the appropriate season or holiday at any given time of the year.
"I have sent a gift when it was free as a joke to a friend, but I would never buy them because they seem like a waste of money," said sophomore Nicole Bowker-Kelly. "A lot of the new applications seem pointless and they encourage users to spend even more time on the Web site than usual."
The recently added game application is becoming increasingly popular among users. Many users admit that it is addicting.
Games like "Jetman," "Warbook" and "Scrabulous" are just a few examples of games developed by various companies that can be added to a user's profile.
Scrabulous, an interactive word game that can be played with friends, has one of the highest numbers of daily active users.
"People find Scrabulous a great way to stay in touch with each other," said the developers of the application Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla. "It has always been our emphasis to provide a very easy-to-use interface and customer support."
Whether users are playing games, taking quizzes, keeping up to date with national sports statistics, or using any of the other hundreds of applications available at the fingertips of any facebook user, it's clear that the popularity of Facebook is not fading any time soon.
Kristen Healy can be reached at kkhealy@student.umass.edu.
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